Activity trackers don’t usually generate a lot of buzz or attract much attention from professional leakers like Roland Quandt prior to their official announcements, but the unreleased Fitbit Charge 4 is not your everyday low-cost smart band.
If you’re familiar with the Fitbit Charge lineup, you should be well aware the most important feature missing from all three previous editions was a built-in GPS chip. Fortunately, it looks like fourth time will be the charm for folks interested in accurately tracking their runs without spending a lot of money on a full-fledged smartwatch or carrying their phones around wherever they go to exercise.
In addition to untethered GPS connectivity, the Fitbit Charge 4 is pretty much confirmed (thanks to
inside information gathered by Quandt and
a leaked promotional video) to come with a heart rate monitor, sleep tracking capabilities, a grayscale OLED display, and a swimproof design. Speaking of the design, very little seems to have changed on that front, and the same goes for essentially all the aforementioned features.
Just like the
Fitbit Charge 3, the Charge 4 is expected to come in standard and “Special” editions, the latter of which will add NFC to the equation for wrist payment support on the company’s proprietary platform. If you like listening to music while working out, you should be happy to hear both the Fitbit Charge 4 and Charge 4 Special Edition will let you stream your favorite Spotify content… as long as you sync your wearable to your phone via Bluetooth.
The already impressive set of Charge 3 activity tracking tools will apparently be further expanded and improved with features like “active zones” and more precise information about different types of workouts, while the battery life should remain largely unchanged, at up to seven days between charges, although standalone GPS use will obviously drastically reduce that number.
Despite these pretty important upgrades and enhancements, the Fitbit Charge 4 is tipped to start at the same $150 price as its predecessor. Of course, nothing’s etched in stone until the company comes out with an official announcement, so let’s try to contain our excitement for the time being.
